Friday, 30 September 2016

This week, Archivist Louise looks forward to talking about her
favourite things in LHSA’s collections (apart from pictures of cats….)

On Wednesday 19th October at 12.30pm, I’m going
to be giving a free, short public talk in the Centre for Research Collections.
The talk’s connected to an exhibition that we’re taking part in inside the 6th floor display wall in the
Main Library. The exhibition looks at the work of an archive from another
angle. You’ll often see archive treasures on display, from manuscripts to
objects to images, but the hard work that goes into making these collections
accessible –so that researchers can physically see them and that they can find
what they’re looking for – all goes on behind closed doors….

The Enhance, Access
and Understand exhibition aims to put his right, bringing behind-the-scenes
conservation, digitisation and description out of the shadows and into the
light (but not too much light – we have to be careful about our lux levels! We’re showcasing the work done throughout the Centre for Research Collections
(CRC) that has been generously funded by the Wellcome Trust Research Resources
scheme – grants to libraries and archives that help to make collections
accessible to researchers by funding cataloguing, digitisation and conservation.

Last week, LHSA Manager, Ruth, and Emily Hick (former Project
Conservator for LHSA, now CRC Special Collections Conservator) hosted a successful
talk and studio tour on the challenges involved in conserving LHSA’s HIV/AIDS
collections, which are featured in Enhance
Access and Understand. Emily explains some of the issues involved in this
work here.
On the 19th October, it’s my turn, and I’ll be focusing on the work
that we’ve done in LHSA to catalogue a fascinating but under-used set of
resources – 20th century folder-based case notes.

To say that I’m attached to case notes is probably an
understatement. I started work here at LHSA as Project Archivist, cataloguing
Dott’s case notes and now I supervise both projects as Archivist. In fact, I had my firstexperience of case notes as a volunteer for LHSA back in 2010.
Looking at case records as a cataloguer both intriguing and intimidating. You
gain a privileged view inside someone’s life at a time when they’re probably feeling
at their most vulnerable (as we all are as patients), but there’s also a lot of
specialist medical language in the cases and, when you’re not a medic, that can
take a lot of deciphering! However, this ‘cataloguer’s view’ is unfortunately
an all too rare one, since researchers do not use archival clinical cases as
much as they might.

Louise as Project Archivist showing off some of her wares!

The first reason is case notes’ physical condition – many are
still in their original folders, which can be messy and loose on shelves.
Fortunately we’ve solved this problem at LHSA thanks to Wellcome Trust grants
that have funded conservation.
However, by producing a catalogue to our case note collections, we’re
overcoming the two main intellectual barriers to their use as well. First, case
notes can be ordered by name, admission number or by ailment – if a researcher
wants to find all cases featuring a certain condition, for example, in a set of
case notes ordered by admission, it can be a lengthy process scoping hundreds
if not thousands of documents. Secondly, since case notes are relatively modern
archives, most are classified as confidential under legislation and NHS
guidelines that cover health records of living and deceased patients. Even to
see what information cases hold, researchers would need to apply for special
permission – which can take time.

Our catalogues hope to circumvent these difficulties by
providing anonymised descriptions of each case in our neurosurgical and TB case
note collections – so potential researchers can see what sort these documents
have to offer. Because of the way in which we’re cataloguing the cases, we will
also produce a confidential, identifiable catalogue that can be accessed by
special permission by legitimate researchers in our reading room. Both
catalogues label aspects of descriptions so that they can be searched under
specific categories.

Finding a way to describe these glimpses into the recent medical
past certainly was a challenge, but has honestly been my career highlight so
far! We’ve had a brilliant team working on both case note projects, and we’d
love you to come along to learn more about how we went about ‘cracking the case
note conundrum’ – there’ll also be a chance for a sneak peek at how entries in the public catalogue will describe cases before the project launch and an opportunity to see some case folders in the
flesh. You can book your free places here: http://bit.ly/2dh9NPa.

In case you were disappointed about the lack of cat pictures
in this post, by the way, here’s one…

Friday, 23 September 2016

LHSA has been a member of the Health Archives and Records
Group (HARG) for a long while, and today is the second time in five years that
we’ve hosted their AGM. HARG is a group of archivists and records managers with
responsibility for health records across the UK that come together a couple of
times a year (usually once in London and once somewhere else!) to discuss
shared issues and brief each other on changes in legislation and how they will
impact on the records in our care. The membership is a bit wider than that
though – anyone with an interest in health records and the history of medicine
is welcome to join.

We were pleased to invite the group to the Centre for
Research Collections for their ‘somewhere else’ meeting this year, and spent a
really interesting and informative day with fellow professionals. Much of the
discussion was around HARG’s brand new website: how we would like the site to look and what information we want to
include to benefit those using it as much as possible (http://healtharchives.co.uk/). But it
was also a chance to catch-up on others’ news and developments as well as share
our own.

The afternoon concentrated on the Scottish perspective, and
the group of us who look after NHS records in Scotland were able to introduce some
of our work to ensure compliance with the Public Records (Scotland) Act and a
conference we hope to run next year focusing on how NHS archives have been used
in artwork and installations in Scottish hospitals to help patients and staff.
Our Project Cataloguing Archivist, Aline, also talked about our case note cataloguing projects and there was time for those attending to take a behind the scenes tour and to have a look at our two current
exhibitions, both of which draw heavily on the history of health and medicine (see our
blog from 19 August for more info if you’d like to see them).

What kind of hosts would we be if we hadn’t made time for
some lunch…?

Friday, 16 September 2016

We've
a new member of the LHSA team to introduce on today's blog! Samar has joined us
for a year on the Scottish Council on Archive's Skills for the Future
Programme:

Hi
there, I’m Samar, LHSA’s current trainee! Seeing as I’ll be writing on here
quite regularly, I thought it would be a good idea to introduce myself and let
you know a bit about my background.

I
have always had a keen interest in history and heritage, studying Art History
and English Literature at the University of Kent in Canterbury, as well as
completing an MSc in Modern and Contemporary Art History, Curating and
Criticism and at the University of Edinburgh. My academic studies have fuelled
my passion for visual and written culture, history, and story-telling, also
broadening my understanding of the politics of collection display, development
and accessibility.

Although
my academic background in art history is not unrelated to the field of
archiving, it wasn’t until I pursued an internship at Glasgow Women’s Library
(GWL) that I began to truly appreciate the impact that archives have on not
only our understanding of the past and present, but on our ability to imagine
possible futures. During the internship at GWL, I gained first-hand experience
working with an accessible archive that is targeted at diverse communities. I
quickly learnt that in collecting materials of women’s history, and running
events and exhibitions that centred around these materials, I was not only
actively redressing the neglect of women’s historical contributions to Scottish
society, but I was also enabling women in the present, especially the most
vulnerable and excluded women in society, to access the information that they
need to develop their skills, knowledge, and self-confidence. Impassioned by
what I had learnt at GWL, I attended a talk at the Feminist Library in London
about the digitisation of their Spare Rib magazine collection. I was inspired
by the website that was developed for the project, which was produced by the
British Library, and features hundreds of issues of the magazine for all to view for free. This was an incredibly exciting
prospect to me, because it meant that the Feminist Library’s archive materials
could be discovered and accessed by large and diverse audiences that may not
have had the opportunity otherwise.

Encouraged
by these experiences, I not only wrote my postgraduate dissertation on feminist
counter-archival practices, but I also founded an online magazine with my
sister Yasmine. My sister and I, who are both dually British and Arab, launched
an online magazine on International Women’s Day which exclusively publishes
artwork and writing by Arab women (www.dardishi.com).
We created this platform, because we feel that the voices and experiences of
Arab women are going largely unarchived. We believe that this is,
unfortunately, because we live in a time where traditional archives and the
media (both Arab and Western) do not represent us. We chose the name ‘dardishi’
(which is the feminine verb for ‘chitchat’ in Arabic), because the magazine’s
formation was largely inspired by all the incredible conversations that my
sister and I have had with our female Arab friends and family. The name
dardishi also says a lot about the tone of the work that dardishi publishes –
informal, conversational work that spurs a wider dialogue on Arab women’s
issues. Since its launch, my sister and I have been overwhelmed by the
incredible support and enthusiasm that we have had for this project!

Dr.
Elsie Inglis in Scottish Women's Hospital
uniform (LHB8A/9)

Although
my studies and experiences are relevant to the archive sector, they have not
equipped me with practical archiving skills. I’m very keen to gain training and
experience in the field, so this traineeship at LHSA is the perfect opportunity
for me. My 12-month traineeship programme is one of seven Scotland-wide
traineeships offered this year as part of the Opening up Scotland’s Archives
project. People like me have been chosen to complete these traineeships in an
effort to diversify the range of people working in the heritage sector,
introduce new skills and perspectives to archival practice, and offer people
without traditional archiving qualifications a route into the workforce. I hope
that through my work at LHSA, I can put my current knowledge to use, and
develop new and exciting skills and experiences in the world of archiving.

I’m
keen to gain experience in both collection development and community outreach
and engagement, and I can’t wait to work with the rich and varied materials
available in LHSA’s holdings. With materials dating from 1594 to the present
day, and a collection that includes clinical and non-clinical NHS records and
personal papers, a photographic collection of around 40,000 items, as well as
older printed books, medical instruments, artworks, silverware and other
historically significant objects, I know I won’t be short of exciting
collections to explore and catalogue. I actually found my favourite piece of
LHSA archive material so far when researching for my interview on this very
blog! In Becky’s post about the advice and recommendation of the doctors who
worked at the Royal Victoria Dispensary (RVD), she explains that upon being
diagnosed with tuberculosis, female patients were advised by doctors to stop
going out dancing at night, to reduce excessive tea-drinking, to wear
stockings, and to spend less time with their boyfriends!

Examples of
recommendations given to female patients who attended the dispensary.

(Clockwise from top L: "To stop smoking and to keep earlier hours -
crooning in a dancehall: attending every night except
Sundays", "To keep earlier hours", "To stop smoking To be
less in the company of the 'boy friend'", "To wear stockings",
"To stop smoking + excessive tea-drinking", "To stop smoking To
stop dancing at nights".)

I’ve had the chance to start cataloguing some records from this collection myself this week, which has been great! Other collections that I’ve got my eye on exploring is the ‘Bruntsfield Hospital and Elsie Inglis Memorial Maternity Hospital’ collection, which contains records from hospices and hospitals founded by innovative Scottish women doctors and feminist campaigners, and the ‘Cervical Smear Campaign and Women's Health’ collection, which covers the feminist campaigns that women organised in order to encourage their local heath councils to take a wide-ranging look at factors affecting the mental and physical health of women in Scotland (that didn’t have to do with stockings, dancing or tea-drinking!). I’m thrilled to have been chosen for this opportunity, and I’ve been so excited to come in to the archive every day and work with such a lovely team of people and such an amazing collection of objects. Watch this space to hear about what I’m learning and what boxes I’m delving into!

Friday, 9 September 2016

Inspired by the current exhibition in the Binks Display Wall on the 6th floor of the Main Library, this week Rebecca takes a closer look at the history of one of the items on display, the inhaler.

Inhalation of smoke and steam from therapeutic plants has
been used to treat chest problems since ancient times, but in Britain it really
grew in popularity from the nineteenth century. Not all of the inhalations
were what we might expect; tobacco and anti-asthma cigarettes including
anti-spasmodics such as stramonium were popular cures, despite what we now know
about the dangers of smoking with regards to chest diseases, and folk cures for
diseases such as whooping cough involved things like holding the head of the
infected child in a hole in the ground to breath in the scent of the earth,
getting them to breath the air in in gas works or coal mines, or breathing into
the mouths of various animals.

A Dr Nelson's inhaler, held in the LHSA Object Collection.
Probably more effective, and certainly more pleasant, than breathing into a frog's mouth!

Inhalers first took off in the 1840s as a means of
anaesthesia, using ether or chloroform. Soon, however, they were being used
with different substances for the treatment of respiratory conditions,
including phthisis (tuberculosis) and asthma. Dr Nelson’s inhaler, launched in
the 1860s, is one of the most recognisable examples of the kinds of inhalers
which were developed in this period. Boiling water is poured into the bowl of
the ceramic inhaler, where it can be blended with soothing and medicinal
substances. The resulting vapour is inhaled normally through a glass spout,
taking the vapour directly into the lungs. Inhalations were quickly accepted as
an effective treatment by the medical community, being formularized in the
British Pharmacopoeia in 1867.

In the twentieth century, the ideas behind inhalation were
further refined, leading to the clinical development of medicines which could
act as bronchodilators and steroids when inhaled, and improved methods of
delivering them. The Royal Victoria Dispensary occasionally recommended
‘inhalations’ for patients with breathing difficulties in the first
half of the century, showing the continued popularity of this method of
treatment. Asthma inhalers as we would recognise them today were first marketed
in 1969, after a team led by Scottish pharmacologist Sir David Jack developed
salbutamol, a bronchodilator, marketed as Ventolin.

Our inhaler on display as part of the Enhance, Access and Understand exhibition.

We have a Dr Nelson’s inhaler on display as part of an
exhibition in the CRC, “Enhance, Access and Understand: The University of
Edinburgh and the Wellcome Trust”, which runs until 31st October.
This exhibition celebrates the recent Wellcome Trust Research Resources funded
projects undertaken at the Centre for Research Collections, including the RVH v
TB and Norman Dott case note cataloguing projects and the HIV/AIDs project at
LHSA. A series of talks will accompany the exhibition.

Friday, 2 September 2016

Colin Smith has recently finished an MSc in Book History and
Material Culture at the University of Edinburgh. He began volunteering with
LHSA back in October of 2015, and has most recently been working with the
Craigleith Hospital Chronicles, a World War One military magazine, printed for
injured servicemen who were recuperating from war injuries in Edinburgh. In
honour of the one-hundredth anniversary of the First World War, Lothian
Health Services Archive revisits the Craigleith Chronicles from 1916 in order
to record the names of people who regularly contributed to the making of the
Chronicles. Many of the contributors were either patients or staff members
associated with the 2nd Scottish General Hospital, a local hospital located
north of Edinburgh City Centre. This blog post highlights some of the
interesting stories that Colin has come across working with the Chronicles.

One of the more lively characters featured in the Craigleith
Chronicles was soldier patient, Private Crumplethorne. Written by Lucas Cappe, the Crumplethore series told
captivating tales of time on the battlefield. On first glance, his
stories seem to be filled with one of courage, bravery, and gallantry-- nothing
short of a distinguished serviceman reliving his experiences of time in war! For
the more familiar subscriber, especially those who live in the same Ward with
Cappe, his stories show signs of a great storyteller who
entertained countless staff, fellow soldiers, and first-time listeners of his
tales.

'Crump had a large and varied stock of yarns, and he loved spinning them'[GD28/6/2 - Vol. 3, Issue 16]

More business-like, the Craigleith Chronicles circulated
“Hospital Notes” in every subscription. The “Notes” brought readers
up to speed with some of the past proceedings of the Hospital. Most of the
time, the “Notes” recapped popular events like when distinguished staff members
of the armed forces visited the Hospital. Other times the “Notes” updated readers
on new building projects such as the construction of the Recreation Hut, gifted to the Hospital by the Red Cross Society in 1916. The “Notes” reported on
staff changes too, noting which staff were called overseas for service and who would
replace their spot. While the “Notes” wished the best to staff who were
departing overseas, some months, it sadly had to bid farewell to friends and
family of the Hospital too in “The Roll of Honour” which listed men and women
who were killed while serving on the battlefront.

One of the most enjoyable parts of the Chronicles that I think captures the essence of the staff and soldiers might very well be
the drawings sketched by soldier patients for the magazine. One example particularly stands out from the rest: the drawings by Sapper George
Bain who sketched a humorous comic strip for the November 1916 issue. The comic
strip shows one full day in the life of Private Binks, presumably a fellow
patient. From the time Binks came to the Hospital, the comic strip portrays the
nightly noises that wake Bink from his sleep. From the geographical
discussions on French towns in the wee hours of the night, the RAMC trampling
through the loud corridors, the flash-light being shone onto Bink’s face to see
if he is sleeping to the mandatory making of the bed by staff early in the
morning, the comic strip shows the playful side of a soldier recuperating
from his war injuries.

'The "rest cure" of Private Binks R.F'[GD28/6/3 Vol 4, Issue 22]

On a more personal note, however, I contend the
drawings show the endearing comradeship of one soldier to the next. It is this image
that I wish to close on in this blogpost. To see how something so small as a
hospital magazine played a significant role in the lives of those who served in
the First World War is what makes this project so crucial for the one-hundredth
anniversary observance.

LHSA would like thank our wonderful volunteers Colin, Aidan, and Arianna for all their help on this fascinating resource.

Lothian Health Services Archive holds the historically important local records of NHS hospitals and other health-related material.
We collect, preserve and catalogue these records and promote them to increase understanding of the history of health and for the benefit of all.

Use of images from LHSA collections

We can provide images from items in our collections, subject to various conditions. Images are provided for private study or non-commercial research, and cannot be used for other purposes unless you request and receive written permission from LHSA to do so.

If you wish to use any images that have been featured on this blog, please contact us at lhsa@ed.ac.uk and we will be happy to discuss permissions with you.